


es irrt der mensch so lang er strebt

by dreadfulbeauties



Category: Pocket Mirror (Video Game)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Canon Compliant, F/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Touching, Yandere, based on the witching hour ending, dw it's not sexual at all, it's hairbrushing and dancing, this has a t rating for a reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28150770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadfulbeauties/pseuds/dreadfulbeauties
Summary: When Goldia fails, the Strange Boy recollects just how they got here. And then he delights in what he has.
Relationships: Goldia die Heilige/Strange Boy (Pocket Mirror)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	es irrt der mensch so lang er strebt

He models himself after the Mephistopheles of myth — or perhaps it isn’t all made-up myth scribbled down by playwrights from Goethe of Germany to dead-too-soon Marlow, seeing as how people doubt the existence of his ilk he’d be one to talk — granting wishes and withholding the details of the price paid in exchange. He’s the reason that children are warned by their mothers to stay out of the woods at night, why poor Henri who’d suffered so much had things to write about.

It amazes him still at how perfectly that one night is imprinted so clearly into his memory. Here, he can conjure it all up perfectly, walk his way through everything that happens.

There comes the girl dressed in red making her way through the woods. She strays from the narrow dirt path, kicking up dust. The girl — Elise, she gets to keep her name (because he doesn’t have one) — doesn’t care that her mother warned her the woods were dangerous. She is here to find wishes, and find them she shall, making her way through the dewy grass in red shoes unfit for such a journey. He comes to her first, he’s always liked surprising people.

“Perhaps it’s me you’re looking for?”

The girl jumps. A few inches higher and she might’ve knocked her head against a tree branch overhead. When she recovers she crosses her arms and stares at him.

“Do you make it a habit of going out of your way to scare poor village girls out of their own skin?”

_Huh. She seems quite a bit more savvy than I thought._ He cackles, making sure that she catches the sharp teeth in his mouth glimmering white against the dark.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

_She won’t be savvy enough._

“I wasn’t here to make chit-chat, though. I wanted to see if you’re that strange boy in the woods everyone back at Kieferberg’s talking about. The one who can grant wishes.”

“No, I’m a dog with bizarrely-shaped fur that followed you home.”

The girl stares blankly.

_Oh. Maybe she hasn’t read Faust._

“I was only joking. But yes, that strange boy that you’re hearing about would be me.”

“Do you by any chance have a name? It feels awkward just referring to you as ‘the strange boy’.”

The saliva dries up in his mouth. Suddenly, the moonlight is all too cold upon his skin through his clothes. Names are a privilege, he was taught. He’s hollow — hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow — because he has no name to speak of. Not like the humans who he snatches their own names from. This Elise is just one among many, he collects names even though they’ll never be names of his own.

“Strange Boy is alright.”

“Alright then, Strange Boy, what can you give me?”

“What is it you want?”

Something flickers over her face. Doubt, he deduces with glee. She’s wavering in her decision already but like the foolish doctor who was six times her age and studied the human body and knew how to count most of the stars in the sky she’ll go through with it. She stares down at the dirt clinging to her pinafore and dress, and then takes a deep breath before she begins to speak.

“…I want wealth,” she says, “And a boy who will love me. I want riches, and pretty dresses, enough money to feast on all the steaks and candies I can’t have. I want to be pretty and rich, to have all the books I can.”

_I was right. She isn’t savvy enough._

“I can give you all those things, if that’s everything you deeply desire.” He’ll test the waters with mercy and see if she’s smart or cowardly enough to flee when she’s given one last chance to. “Do you?”

“Of course I don’t, I just arbitrarily listed a bunch of the things I want because I have nothing better to do than to talk to some strange-looking boy in the middle of the woods about everything I’ll never have.”

That does it — he laughs. Small and hardly audible amidst the rustling of leaves and buzzing of insects in the woods, but a laugh nonetheless.

“I didn’t know that you had a sense of humor. You come off as kind of a goody two shoes to me.” Little Miss Goody Two Shoes. That’s what he calls Elise in the privacy of his mind. She’s always out and about helping her mother load threadbare clothes into soapy water, fetching this and that through the village, plucking up the food she can manage to afford down at the marketplace. He leaves that out, though. If she hadn’t decided to run for the hills when he’d first brought up the matter of bargaining before, she might if she finds that he’s been watching her.-

“I didn’t come here to get insulted, you know.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that as an insult at all — I was actually hoping you’d take it as a compliment! The sense of humor part, not the goody two shoes part. Still, now I can see that you’re not all that much of a goody two shoes, either.”

For the first time since she stepped into these woods, Elise giggles. It’s an unusual sight, if not a welcome one. She doesn’t know what’s going to come next, neither does he but at least he’ll be the one in control, jerking her around on the puppet strings even when she begs to be let alone. But then the moment ends and her face grows solemn, brown eyes staring dimly back at him in the dark.

“Everything you asked for and more, if it’s not enough. Of course…” Once again, he smiles wide enough to make sure that the rows of sharp teeth in his mouth are prominent enough “…You’d have to be willing to pay a price.”

“There’s always a price, isn’t there? Like in the stories. But I’d be willing to pay — whatever it is you want, I’ll give you. My soul?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“What, then?”

He knows full well what he wants. Dozens upon dozens of names he steals away for himself, from a fretting mother’s newborn to a lemon-faced schoolteacher. Names that are a reminder of what he will never have… No, names are far more than that. If you give away a name, you give away a soul, an identity. What is left behind is a mere empty shell. And to think that there are so many names he doesn’t have in his coveted collection yet.

“When the time comes, I want you to give me the name of your firstborn daughter.”

* * *

He’s grateful for the curtain of hair covering his face, because otherwise Goldia would see his one eye go wide with shock at just how much she resembles Elise.

Dear Elise is gone now. As is her husband, Roman. He hadn’t finished them off when it was clear that Elise didn’t want to keep her end of the bargain — it had just happened, that was all it was. Now they were dead and gone. Though her body may be trapped inside the asylum, cherry-red eyes staring emptily out towards the sun in the distance, her mind is in his world.

It’s all because of that horrible little pocket mirror. The pocket mirror is something Goldia brings with her here, all because Elise etched the letter “G” onto it in the chance that she might escape. So he creates a perfect döppellganger he calls Enjel. She is everything Goldia is not: Yellow ribbons set in her long black hair where Goldia would have red ribbons set against brown, bright golden eyes that can’t possibly match Goldia’s crimson. She thinks she can get out if she just snatches up the pocket mirror.

He creates toys, gives them free will. It’s more entertaining that way if he does. Having all the broken remains of Goldia — the Lilliputian Princess, the Maiden of Pristine Eyes, the Sleeping Maiden of Horrors — be nothing but puppets would suck all the fun out of his game. So he gives them a will and way, watches them all from the shadows. He’ll deal with them soon enough.

To his delight, Goldia fails.

He’s happy for it. He’s grown rather fond of Goldia. Poor, innocent thing, all tied up in the debt her mother has to pay for the bargain she made. She’s just making her quiet way through this world, sputtering out apologies and trying so hard to be her best self, even if she’s got no self to speak of. It marvels him how even when the residents of this world he crafted just for her are terribly impolite and dismissive of her she still remains soft-spoken. She simply wants the best for everyone. Even for those like Lisette. Breaking her is a challenge like none he has seen, and once he is through he won’t let her go.

He thinks he loves her. Or at least loves what will become of her. 

He can’t really tell the difference.

She looks for a way out and Enjel gives her what she thinks is an exit. There is no exit. He makes sure of it.

Once, twice, thrice — she fails. She does not remember, does not retrieve what the fragments of herself are supposed to give her. She suffers in silence as a punishment. The needle and thread pierce through her lips.

Fleta is the first to go, and the first one he gets rid of — he’ll mutilate childish naivete and hope that she takes center stage. Petulant little girl, always clinging to her dolls and bursting into tears when she doesn’t get her way. She shatters in the end and leaves Goldia crying. He almost feels pity for her. Almost. He knows, of course, that’s all part of the game. It’s strange, though, seeing how Fleta was the easiest. He gives her the truth that she’s no princess, only a parody of one. Blood coats the wood once it’s over, and though her mouth is shut he knows if she could speak she’d be crying out for her “friends”.

Goldia can only watch with sheer horror written on her face. Good. 

The scapegoat is next. Lisette hangs from the cross, bloodied and battered. This is what Goldia tried to hide away from even as the facade cracked. No matter how she tries to reach for Goldia, to save her with the promise of death, she failed. As did Goldia. She dies a martyr — a more dignified death than that of childhood dreams. She is torn to pieces. She was birthed from pain and shall die from it. It’s only fitting. Poor fool Lisette was, she tried. 

He almost feels sorry for her.

Almost.

In other fairy tales, Harpae would be a princess — the one locked up in a castle with only the company of her books, gentle as anything and pining for the knight who would one day save her. Harpae is the knight of her story. But she is hardly Galahad, who sought out the Grail and paid for it with a one-way trip to Heaven. No, Harpae is Lancelot: Drunk upon his pride and convinced that he was in the right, even as Camelot melted away and was hardly the grand kingdom it once was. Lancelot paid for his pride with his life, as will Harpae. She tried to be a knight for parents who hardly batted an eye at her. It’s only fitting that true knights draw their blades on her to run her through with.

Then comes Enjel. Enjel who he crafted all on his own. He promised her freedom and tore out a finger from her hand. His brave, brave puppet.

She’s a fake reflection in a funhouse mirror. Not like Goldia, all softness and warm-eyed glances. Enjel’s not going to become a real girl. She’s worse than Lisette, even if the both of them were forged from hurt. Lisette tried. She was a hair’s breadth away from the truth.

Amused, he watches the thorns erupt from her mouth and tear through the soft flesh of her tongue. He could have just had her erased with a snap of his fingers, but what’s the fun in that? He put in all this work into forging a magnum opus for Goldia to make her way through, it’s only natural that he end his creations the same way. Even if Enjel is a pale copy of the real Goldia and not a part of her like his other three puppets, he gave her free will and false promises of humanity that he takes away.

Enjel dies mutilated and spitting up blood. 

The play is finished. He hops off the stage to approach his dearest Goldia.

“It is time for you to come to me…”

She is silent.

“Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes.”

\- He turns Goldia around to leave a kiss on her lips. It is light and innocent, but he can feel the threads that run through her lips and keep them trapped shut. He likes the contrast of thin, brittle thread stitched beneath soft skin. Her name is his now. Goldia.

* * *

He gives her new, empty names. Pet names, the humans call them. Darling. Dearest. Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes — that’s his favorite. She is his most prized possession, a name that shines bright like the metal its meaning derives from, standing out amongst his collection of dull names. The pocket mirror is forgotten and useless.

_Is this what Mephistopheles felt when he got to drag Doctor Faustus into hell?_ He thinks. He never did like the ending of Goethe’s version of the tale, where Faust was pardoned for his sins and was reunited once more in Heaven alongside his beloved Gretchen. Happy endings are a waste, a hand wave of what is most repulsive in the world. It’s a good thing this is reality, where he can bask in the morbid and reviled.

For a puppet, he notes, he makes sure to treat Goldia with remarkable care. Her once bright eyes have gone dull. She sits with her tea growing cold, pumpkin pastries gone untouched — not that she would be able to partake in the desserts he offers her, seeing as how her mouth is stitched shut and she’s reduced to whistling breathing through her nose. It’s a little sad: She’s grown so lifeless, a thin shell that once housed the name of a remarkably caring young girl with the temperament of an angel.

“You’ve got such lovely hair.”

He flexes a strand of said hair in his hand. Brown, with glints of red. It’s soft resting against his palm and wound through his fingers. Today she wears orange, which sits so beautifully against that bold auburn hair of hers. He gives her the privacy of dressing; he’s not a complete monster (though others would object, the poor thing’s family certainly would).

“It would be a pity if it were to get all tangled up,” he laments. “Not like Lisette’s — hers looked like a rat’s nest. I ought to do a favor and brush it for you, eh?”

The brush rustles through Goldia’s hair, small tangles snapping beneath it and dissolving. He hums a nonsense tune under his breath. If it weren’t for the slight rise and fall of her shoulders beneath that curtain of long hair, he’d think she were a doll. Or dead. There’s really not much difference.

There’s no going back. That’s alright. He doesn’t want to go back. 

“All done,” he proclaims, setting the hairbrush down. “You look lovely! Now for your ribbons…”

He goes with orange ribbons. Orange is the color of sweet pumpkins with carved faces that cast eerie shadows in the dark. It’s his favorite color. Naturally it would suit Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes.

Soft piano music plays in the distance. He’s composed this tune before. It was for Egliette’s ball, where Goldia had tried to help those sweet little dancers only to end up with them slaughtering the rest of their former competitors for revenge. He rather likes this tune, in spite of the grisly circumstances — or perhaps because of it. He’s never been one to mind a bit of bloodshed. In fact, he rather likes it.

“Ah! What a lovely composition. You must remember this one.”

She gives the smallest nod of her head. Lovely, her eyes have begun to glitter a little, a telltale sign of tears she might shed soon enough!

“If only you’d gotten the chance to dance alongside your fellow partygoers. That would have been quite a lot of fun. Ah, well, we can always dance in the here and now.”

He bows in front of her. She does not move an inch from where she sits still in her chair.

“May I have this dance, Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes?”

She rises from her seat but does not reach out to him. So he takes her in his arms and they begin their waltz.

There are no perils or traps she’ll have to navigate here. She is safe with him, safe now that he has her name in his grasp. He’s hardly a protector, but he can rest easy with the knowledge that Goldia and her name are his and no one else’s — he would soon as slaughter anyone that dared to prove otherwise. He watches her skirt dripping with ribbons billow out in a circle with her every movement, how her hair swings out away from her shoulders as they twirl around.

As his shoes click upon the floor, it occurs to him that he may love her. He loves her, though, as a child may love a precious toy. It is still love all the same. He loved Goldia before she woke up with just a pocket mirror at her side. Loves her now, still, as she is his to keep company and offer a cruel substitute of comfort. 

But what he loved most of all, he realizes during their dance, was _breaking_ her. Goldia tried so hard. He snatched up her name anyways, she did what she could. It makes for a beautiful tragedy.

Well, her story might be a tragedy.

For him, this is the happiest ending of all.

**Author's Note:**

> oh, strange boy. you're so evil, yet so adorable, too. i tried to make him the same playful sadist he is in game. i'm rather happy with this one, at least when it comes to the writing.
> 
> the bit about the dog refers to the scene in goethe's faust where mephistopheles follows faust home in the guise of a poodle - i used the term "bizarrely-shaped" because of the kind of ridiculous haircuts poodles tend to get.
> 
> also yes :] i put in all those faust references on purpose. i love the play and... oh, come on. pocket mirror takes place in late 19th-century germany/austria, you think i'm gonna pass up an opportunity to NOT reference it? and i think the strange boy's enough of a pretentious lil' twerp to compare himself to freaking mephistopheles...
> 
> thank you all for reading this one. please take care of yourselves and stay safe out there. <3


End file.
